Reference Options of the CO2 Compression Processes Available for Technological Concepts of a 900 MW Pulverized Coal-Fired Power Plant

Three commercially available intercooled compression strategies for compressing CO2 were choose and studied. All the compression conceptions required a final delivery pressure of 15.3 MPa at the pipeline inlet. The objective of this study was to boost the pressure of CO2 to pipeline pressure with the minimum amount of energy. Two technologies are available on the centrifugal compressor market: in-line centrifugal and integrally geared compressors. This chapter presents an analysis of three different compressor types: the conventional multistage centrifugal compressor, the integrally geared compressor and the integrally geared compressor combined with pump machines (Moore and Nored, Novel concepts for the compression of large volumes of carbon dioxide, 2008; Botero et al., Thermoeconomic evaluation of CO2 compression strategies for post-combustion CO2 capture applications, 2009). The process was simulated using the Aspen Plus software package (Aspen, version 7.0, User Guide, 2008) to predict thermodynamic properties of the CO2 stream at required conditions and quantify the performance of each compression chain option. Within the Aspen Plus environment, the Benedict, Web and Rubin with extension by Starling (BWRS) and the Redlich and Kwong augmented by Soave (LKP) equations of state for real gases were used within relevant ranges of pressure and temperature for the process compressor. The results for carbon dioxide are as follows: the BWRS best agreement for pmax 99.8 %), the LKP best agreement for 5–25 MPa (98 %), (Ludtke, Process centrifugal compressors, 2004).